Travelling Safely With Dogs

Hello everybody. We're long established campervan owners, but are thinking of taking the plunge and changing our short wheelbase VWT5 to a slightly larger Autosleeper Symbol, Autocruise Rhythm Compact or even an Autotrail V-line. We've got 2 dogs - one large and one small and at present they travel on the made-up front bed attached to the 2 seat belts with their harnesses. The new vans don't seem to have seatbelts for side facing seats and our 2 wouldn't take kindly to travelling in a cage (and there's no room!) so what would you knowledgeable lot do about transporting them safely? How do your pets travel?

we have chains attached to the rear of the front seats, sufficient to allow the dogs to stand sit or turn around but not to get between the front seats. The chain clips on to their harnesses. They have now travelled over 20,000 miles like that and no problem whatsoever. On a previous van where there was no access to the rear of the front seats I fitted an eye bolt through the floor onto the chassis and again used body harnesses.

I used 2 leads, 1 hooked around the front seat and tied in the middle and then the other side clipped to her harness, she had a little room to move around then but not to be a hazard if we crashed and run off in a panic.

In our old PVC we used the set up in pictures. Secured to our side benches.
We have just changed to a V-line on Friday and although we have a front bench it isn't structurally sound enough to do the same. We are currently trying to work out where best to secure our three, it's likely to be anchor bold through floor then same harnesses and seat belt extenders as in pictures.

Thank you so much for your reply. The pictures were really helpful - hope you like your new V-Line. Reading Indi's blog, I gather you bought your van from Brownhills. We're going there on Monday to view and test drive the V-Line 620 & the Rhythm. Hope we get offered as good a deal as yours.

Thank you so much for your reply. The pictures were really helpful - hope you like your new V-Line. Reading Indi's blog, I gather you bought your van from Brownhills. We're going there on Monday to view and test drive the V-Line 620 & the Rhythm. Hope we get offered as good a deal as yours.